best in china made optics?

you know china made optics has a bad reputation with most of the shooting community , most of the things you hear are that their glass is foggy, cloudy or discolored, they distort bad, they won't hold zero, and have very poor eye relief.

and this is true somewhat -- i have a couple scopes just like those --- but they are quite old --

recently there have been some very nice optics coming out of mainland china. they ain't dirt cheap like they were --but they are reasonably priced.

i have a primary arms red dot that so far for $99 shipped has done about as well as some of the expensive stuff. the batteries are still good, the glass is clear as a bell and the thing has stayed on zero as good as anything.

the thing seems well made , it ain't pot-metal/plastic garbage like the old days--real aluminum tubing for the body.

i liked it so well i ordered a 1-4x 24mm scope. from all i can find on the interweb this $119 scope is made in the same plant with most of the same parts as the $300 name brand scopes that are made in china.

i guess i'll see when it gets here.

here is a link where a guy compares one to a leupold and it does pretty darn good for the $$--and i was really tempted to get the leupold hog scope--LOL!

i got a 1-6x version from amazon for $49 bucks shipped --might be a POS--then again it might have come from that same factory in china--it will be interesting to see if their the shit or shit--LOL

another sub $200 1-4x scope that seems well liked is the optisan mamba-- it is like PA's 1-4 twin except it has a ballistic type sighting system rather than the old tried and true euro cross-hair setup. it may have a little more illumination for use like a red-dot sight at 1x.

for the price i thought this must be an air-soft toy scope. it don't look too bad. the glass is clear for such a cheapo when you find the magnification it likes. this one is clear from 1x to 2.75x then it gets a slight distortion form 3x-to 5x --then it clears up again at 6x - then the 3-5x settings are sometimes clear depending on how far the range of the target. this one is a 1-3x + 6x!--LOL
i figure they couldn't get the objective to cover the full range --so they gave up the middle settings get 6x clear out of it.

it is not adjustable for AO either. the scope is now on my 605 colt clone -- i have yet to sight it in--so we'll see how it works.

if this scope was clear all the way through it would be a hell of a deal-- it ain't too bad for $50-- hell the mount cost more than it does--LOL

One word - "Vortex". Most are on par with Leupold scopes for less. The red dots "Strikefire" and "Sparc" are both decent as well. I was skeptical at first myself but have bought several Vortex scopes when they were "cheap" but now prices have risen quite a bit since then. The company itself has not been involved in the riflescope business all that long; however, the people behind it have been in the optics business since the mid-1980s. The company itself is based in Wisconsin, but the riflescopes they market are manufactured overseas: Japan, Phillipines or China, depending on the product line. At the moment there are four distinct riflescope product lines marketed by Vortex:

least expensive are Chinese-made Crossfire scopes
next (significant) step up are Phillipine-made Diamondback riflescopes
Viper scopes are another step-up in quality (also Phillipine-made)
at the top of the line-up are the (absolutely world-class) Razor HD riflescopes that are manufactured in Japan.

This arrangement is changed somewhat in 2011, with the Viper line being largely replaced by Viper PST and Viper HS.

i read somewhere that optisan in CHINA makes their own glass as well as glass for other makes including exporting glass to the PIs -- no mention to who got the glass from optisan or which brand scopes it was installed in--

--i just ordered a optisan mamba from SWFA in texas--LOL -- i guess well see if it is up to its reputation or not.

some say it is better than the PA and the PA1-4 is some damn fine optic for a very modest price from what i have seen so far. if the optisan is better it is going to have to be really something.

i think the optisan has etched glass-- while the PA is conventional on the cross-hair set.

their about the same price --the optisan is $149-- it comes with a $30 mount. --the PA 1-4x is $119 with no mount.

I have a Leatherwood/Hi-Lux CMR 1 X 4 that I like and they came out with one more set up for the AK recently. Their prices have started to climb along with their popularity. I think j427x is right and things are much different than just 3 or 4 years ago. I also think if the Romanians can make good glass then so can the Chinese. All it takes is an American company willing to invest in modern machinery and then assure quality control.

Gunco member #11

“it is dangerous to be right in matters about which the established authorities are wrong” Voltaire

somebody on this board-- i can't recall who it was -- said something on the order that china makes what the US importers ask for.

most of the time wally-martz and others are more interested in a uber-low ball price --and quality is not even mentioned.

china may be turning the corner on this some.

back when i was a kid "jap junk" was the object of scorn-- a decades later japan made goods were considered to be very good stuff.

the only thing is while the new china made optics certainly ain't the "junk-crap" that their optical devices were decades ago, their optics ain't dirt cheap no more either. their more middle range in the pricing.

they can when the want to make some nice optics for very reasonable $$-- they just got to learn to control those bad cost-cutting/corner slicing habits they learned from wally-mart--LOL

I have a ZOS 6-24x50 SFE on the battle rifle. I have no complaints about the scope. It has good clear glass and still zeroed just fine.

now i didn't know ZOS was china made---?? there are probably a bunch of brand names that get their scopes from china i don't know of-- i wonder where SWFAs scopes are made?

one thing is that the new improved china glass is more pricy-

- in the low power big game scopes 1-4x the PA 1-4 is about $120, the optisan mamba is $150 with mount and the leupold hog plex is $229 -- and several of the more name brand 1-4x scopes from china go above the price of the leupold hog plex. confusing ain't it--LOL

and upscale china made glass is $300-$500+ so it is up there with US, PI and japans price range.

optisan makes a 1-6x scope that is supposed to be--top of the line PA sold them for a while --i think the were $500 some odd-- that is ten times the cost of my amazon 1-6x! LOL!